Make sure your employees understand your social media policy and why you need to implement it.

Miley Cyrus quit Twitter saying she needs to keep some of the things in her life private. Last week a waiter was fired for tweeting about clients.  A few months ago a woman was sued by a realty company over a tweet. Social media have become such a major part of people’s lives that they really affect many aspects of our lives. People can no longer separate their online persona with their real-life persona.  Whatever people post online could have a direct effect, positive or negative, in their lives.  This is why it is very important for people to mind the things that they tweet and share online, especially if they are using social media for business.  For companies, it is very important to make sure that everything they publish online presents the company in a good light. For employees, even if their social media accounts are for personal use, they should understand that anything they share publicly online can easily spread and be read by plenty of people.  So a simple misunderstanding at work can blow to become a real problem if a person tweets or blogs about it without clearing matters at work.  A person could easily lose a job by complaining too much online. People could get hurt emotionally with insensitive comments posted. There are so many things that could happen from posting information online. People should really be careful in using various types of social media.

A company must implement a social media guideline that does not trample on the rights of workers to use social media but still protects the business and the workers. It is important for the employees to understand that there are reasons your company must implement a social media policy.  Give them examples of how messages can spread quickly online.  Tell them how over-sharing of information is not always good especially if the information pertains to your business.  You don’t want marketing and other strategic information to spread and reach your competitor even before you’ve had time to implement your plans. 

Social media are incredibly powerful.  It is astounding just how quickly information whether true or false can spread over social networks. There are many people who fail to validate the information they receive and still actively participate in spreading the information. 

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